Chinese mitten crabs

[Scouse]

Hello

I was in my LFS the other day chattin to one of the blokes who was askin if I had thought of live food sources.... off I went on my proposed colonies in the sump etc etc....

He mention that the river thames (5 mins walk from mine) is full of chinese mitten crabs which came over on the boats many moons ago and have established themselves. Turn over a few rockss when the tides out an your laughin!!!

Now then......I reckon theres a good chance of disease in there??? but not sure and think would i be askin for trouble in puttin them in my tank as food.

Also would these be marine or fresh water dependant? its a tidal river, but there is loads of monster carp etc in there.

The fella in the shop wasnt sure about marine etc an said he was thinkin of takin a couple of em into the shop an puttin em in a tank to see how they do. Rather him than me. But I fear that could take forever for him to do...(will have to pester him on that!)

any thoughts?

Nice one.

 

[Colin]

brackish water is in betwen fresh and marine, best idea is to get a sample of water from where the crabs live and test it with a hydrometer. That way you'll know for sure.

As the crab is an invert what kills octos should also kill it so they might be safe but no promises

Also, as the crab is introduced, you will be open to a really heavy nasty fine if you are caught collecting them! That's because you might accidently drop one on your way home, for example, which makes it to a new river and it was a gravid female, which then lays eggs and you have infested another river with mitten crabs! So DEFRA will skin you alive and English Nature would eat the remains!!! you may never get caught but touching illegal aliens will get you shot if they do see you.

As a by the way, did you know that if you found an injured grey squirel and nursed it back to health you cant let it go again? Its also introduced and you would be open to fines for letting it go again! Same thing for mitten crabs...

 

[Scouse]

Alright Colin,

Nice one mate, well that puts that fella out, dont wanna be accused of ruining Londons pleasant rivers and disturbing the poo!!! (I can talk with the mersey at home!!!)

Well, I never, on th squirrel scenario!!!

Dont like the little grey fellas, BRING BACK THE RED SQUIRRELS!!!!

But on another note, I have a funny story that was happening in east London about 3 years ago.....Apparentley (this was in the news an loads of papers) grey squirrels in some park were attacking and mugging old ladies coming back from the supermarket with shoppin!!!!!

Yeh, mental!!! and a loads of b@ll@cks!!! i hear you all say!!!

Well some monkey did some tests and investigations and they discovered the incidents were happenin in the days after the park had been swept clean of cigarette butts. The final result was they dicovered that the squirrels were addicted to the nicotine and went nuts without it!!!!!!!!

Dunno if the NHS are givin em free sticky patches or they have to go to the chemist now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Colin]

actually i do remember something about that... I'm sure that there was a similar incident with crows or magpies too.... LOL

Perhaps DEFRA would give you a license to help rid the rivers of crabs?